Mark
by dramontheastronomer
Summary: (Set in the Wormverse) Don't really know what to say except go read Worm if you haven't, it's really brilliant.


The van drove through the neighbourhood.

Krook sat besides the guy with the astronaut-looking suit, their backs to the side doors of the van. As far as she recalled, he called himself Pull Center, or something of the sort. The two before them were Intercept, and a deformed woman who's name she couldn't bring herself to remember.

_Fuck,_ she thought. _I didn't sign up for this._

Of course, she _did_ sign up for this, but a drive with three violent psychopaths wasn't what she was expecting.

"So…" Pull Center started, giving Krook a side glance. "What's with the name?"

She didn't answer. Intercept looked up from a scanner he had been fiddling with, either interested in the conversation or annoyed at the interruption - Krook couldn't tell.

"I mean, does it mean 'criminal'? As in, 'crook', and stuff?"

"It's spelled with a 'K'," Intercept muttered. He knew that from research on his tech, she assumed.

"So is the 'K' just a cool-factor thing, or…?"

"Shut," the woman said. Her voice was groaned and choked, and barely intelligible.

"Jeez," Pull Center replied. "I'm just making conversation. No need to get upset."

"This is a mission, Pressure Center." _Ah, that was his name._ "There's no place for conversation."

"How am I supposed to kick ass alongside somebody who's name I don't even understand, you get me?"

"It's the name of a character from a book," she muttered, and Pressure Center turned to her.

"Oh. Oh. That's legit, yeah."

Intercept continued playing with his gizmo, a scanner-esque thing with a sci-fi look. He concentrated on it, his eyes adopting the classic "busy tinker" look. He was short, she noticed, looking over his figure. _And far too young to be here._ Not that she was anyone to speak, though.

The other woman kept her eyes on Krook, which was especially creepy, seeing as she had more than two. Her left eye - or her main left eye - was enlarged, with two pupils instead of one, and she had other, smaller eyes growing besides that one. Her nose was fractured, as if a different nose had grown out of the first one's bridge. Her body was no less weird. Multiple awry arms extended from her regular-sized right arm; her right hand expanded into three other ones; and her left shoulder wasn't directly connected to her collar bone. She stared at Krook, but stayed mute.

_What am I doing here?_

They rode the rest of the way in silence.

—

"Alright, Christi, are you ready?"

"Does it matter if I'm not?"

Em chuckled. The witch costume looked good on her, oddly enough. _Or maybe not so oddly. Everything looks good on her._

"Guess not," Em answered. They smiled at each other, then hugged briefly. "This is it, bud. Your big break. Eh?"

Christi rolled her eyes. "Please don't _ever_ call me 'bud' again."

"I'll do my best, you do yours."

"But take that shit-eating grin off your face. You're a witch, not a sadist."

"Personally I don't see why the two can't overlap," Em started, winking, "but I'll stop smiling anyhow."

"Great. See you on the stage in a couple minutes."

"See you," Em said. As Christi walked off to behind the curtains, she added a "bud" under her breath.

Christi heard, but she said nothing anyways.

—

The van stopped, and the driver turned his head to look at his four supervillain passengers. "You guys get briefed already?"

"Yeah, we got the basic premise," Pressure Center answered.

"Well, I'll go through it again."

"You really don't need to," Intercept said.

"Look, the boss doesn't want—"

"We know the details and we know how to handle them. There won't be any problems, you can be sure of that," Intercept said. "Besides, we're in a hurry." Krook looked at him along with the driver, both in confusion. _No one said anything about a hurry._

"What's the hurry?", the driver voiced her thoughts.

"The Wards are here already."

All the van's occupants raised their eyebrows.

"And they're nearing the van as we speak. So we'd better finish with the chit-chat and go beat the ever-living shit out of these children."

Pressure Center said "you know, it's like you _wanted _ to make that sound awful" and the driver said "but how would they know we're here?" at the same time.

"Again," Intercept said, "There's no time for chit-chat. Let's get going."

"But…", Krook interfered. "We need a battle plan. We can't go into this unprepared."

"We can make one on the fly," Intercept tried. It didn't impress her too much. "Fine, look, here's a plan. Ensemble makes a mess, the Wards head her way. I scope out the battlefield, lock on one of them, make sure we have escape and reinforcement routes. You and PC set up, get ready to tag-team them, because your powers work together, and once I've ensured that we can control the area of the fight, the three of us go in and aid Ensemble. How's that?"

She thought for a moment._ I doubt I can come up with something better._ _But we're still unprepared._

_And I don't know if I can really trust these guys. That is - I know I can't trust these guys._

"You hear me, Miss Dickens? You alright with that plan?"

"Y… yeah." _Miss Dickens?_ _...I guess I'm not the only one here with a —_

Her line of thought was interrupted by a voice from outside. "Please step out of the vehicle and show license and registration!"

"Ensemble," Intercept nudged.

"Yeah," she growled.

—

"Oh, thy great and monstrous witch!

This mask you wear is thy power's switch!

If only known this I before,

I would have struck this as your core!"

Christi finished the line, raised the wooden mask-prop, and struck an imposing pose.

"But… What is this?

Thy power… calls…

I'll use it for a greater cause!

For I will be a graceful witch!

My people's wishes I won't ditch!

I'll simply put this mask on m'fore,

And none will be as was before!"

Tom, wearing the gnome-costume, cackled from the sideline.

"Oh, the foolish heroine trips,

To the trap my mother knits.

Soon she'll be a knight no longer,

When dark powers make her stronger…"

He cackled again. She had helped him practice that cackle for hours on end, just the two of them, so that it sounded just evil and menacing enough without being over-the-top. He did it perfectly.

Christi raised the mask and slammed it onto her face with a climactic motion. She took the dramatic pose again.

And then her cheek started to hurt like a motherfucker.

Her eyes opened wide, the shock and the horrible stabbing pain rippling through her mind. It was all she could do not to scream out loud. She stood frozen.

_What the hell? What— What's going on?!_

She could feel the blood trickling down her face. _Something stabbed me. Something sharp._

_Yeah, no shit, Christi! Think of something! Do something! Stop this!_

_I…_ The thoughts were no longer running through her mind. Now they were sprinting.

_It… It feels rusted, it's something rusted, I…_

_Come on, Christi, something useful, something…_

_Fuck, fuck, please somebody stop this pain…_

_It's…_ _Where did it come from?_

_The mask, _she thought. _It was inside the mask._

_Did someone put a knife in there?_

_It doesn't feel like a knife. Fuck, it feels so much worse!_

_What…_

_Who the fuck would want to stab me?!_

—

Ensemble pulled the door open, jumping to the pavement with a feathery movement. The heroine, a fair-haired and tall teen with yellow-white spandex, took a few steps back as she got a good look at the woman. "E… excuse me, miss, but I need to speak to the driver, not to—"

Ensemble raised her right fists to the sky and brought them crashing down into the ground. She grabbed a large piece of concrete and picked it up, moving slowly to make the dramatic impact more potent.

"Run," she groaned at the girl.

The heroine stood still for a moment, taking in the situation, the turned and dashed to a safe distance.

"Get driving," Intercept told the driver. The van lurched forward, circling around and away from Ensemble and her newfound foe.

Once the heroine was far enough away, she spun around and lifted both of her arms at a right angle towards Ensemble, fingers interlocked. She brought herself to a stop, then fired a gold blast from her hands.

Ensemble tossed the piece of concrete between her and the attack, then leapt. She roared and extended her hands at the heroine. The girl rolled away from Ensemble's landing, then fired a smaller blast with one hand. Ensemble took the blast head-on.

The van reached an alley besides the main road, and Krook jumped down. Pressure Center followed right after. They took a few steps, to get a vantage point from behind a building. Intercept and the drive continued down the alley.

The heroine called something into her earpiece, and Ensemble chucked more rubble at her. A mild-sized piece of pavement scraped her across the shoulder, and she fell to the ground.

"Jesus," Pressure Center said. "I wouldn't want to be her."

Ensemble reached the heroine in three light steps, each one propelling her off the floor. She raised all her arms and brought her hands together above her head. The heroine released three blasts into Ensemble's face, then straggled backwards.

"I guess she's a fighter."

"I don't need your commentary."

"Is everyone so rude in the villain community, or is it just you two?", the man asked from behind them.

—

_What _is_ this shit?_

She was shocked at how still she could stand, even with her heart beating so fast. _I've gotta move, _she thought. Only a few seconds had passed since she put on the mask, and so far no one was looking at her fishy.

_No, no, I can't move! What if it cuts my face? What if it gets worse? What if it scars?_

_Oh God, what if it _scars_?!_

_I'm ruined,_ she panicked. _I'm ruined, I'm ruined, my future is ruined, no one in Hollywood would accept an actress with a hideous scar on her face, I won't get any jobs acting, I won't get any jobs anyhow, I—_

_It's a nail,_ she thought all of a sudden. _It's a nail, from when Andrea dropped the mask into the toolbox._

Christi managed to move her eyes without tensing her face, and to look at Tom.

_Fuck, no, no, Tom will leave me and I—_

_Calm yourself right _fucking_ now, Christi! _A more mature part of her hollered. _What do we _do_?_

The question, phrased so violently in her head, didn't help the calming. _What do I _do_? Tom will hate me, and I won't be able to do the second show, and I won't get any jobs in Hollywood, and mom and dad don't have the money for plastic surgery—_

People were starting to notice. _Tom_ was starting to notice. She was still for half a minute now, almost. Tom made awkward movements, trying to nudge her into action with her body language. She didn't respond. _Couldn't_ respond. The blood was reaching her chin, piling up on the ledge of the mask.

Tom coughed. Something needed to happen.

_My line, what's my line?!_

_What does it matter what your line is, you'll scar your face more if you say it!_

_What's my fucking line?!_

Perhaps deciding it was best to cut the silence and to make up for the loss of the line, Em, dressed as the witch, stepped out from right stage. The crowd calmed a little as she poised herself with her back bent on the broom-prop and laughed loudly and vilely.

But Christi's heart went from beating fast too beating at hyper-speed.

_Em._

_Holy shit, Em. I'm ruining this for her. I'll ruin her forever, and I'm already ruining myself. She'll never forgive me._

_And she'll _hate_ me for this, and she'll _despise_ me once my face is all covered in scars—_

Now she began to tremble.

She couldn't hear as Em said her line.

_No, no, Em, I don't mean to—_

_SOMEONE STOP THIS PAIN!_

And then all that was left was the beings.


End file.
